The Guilty (Will Robie 4)

“Robie!”

It was Reel. He jerked out of his paralysis. But not in time.

The shot rang out.

There was a grunt, then a gasp, and a body dropped to the floor.

A light came on, blinding Robie.

He looked down to see Reel on the floor unconscious and bleeding.

Then the voice called out from the periphery of darkness.

“Hello, Will, it’s been a long time.”

Chapter

76

THE LIGHT WAS shifted, and Robie could see it was coming from a battery-operated camping lantern.

Now he could see the person standing in one corner of the room.

It was

not Henry Barksdale holding a gun pointed at Robie.

Victoria looked back at him, the tightest of smiles playing over her lips.

Robie stared back at her, his mind unable to process what was happening.

She took two steps forward.

“Please put your weapon on the floor and kick it toward me,” she said. “And I know you keep another one in the waistband at the small of your back. I saw that before. Do the same with that one.”

When Robie didn’t move, Victoria pointed her gun at Reel. “The next one is the kill shot.”

Robie placed his gun on the floor, then took out his backup and kicked them both toward Victoria.

“Please do the same with your partner’s.”

Robie did so, and Victoria, without ever taking her gaze off Robie, used her foot to move the four guns to the far back wall and behind her.

“Who are you?” asked Robie.

“I’m very surprised by that question, Will. I thought by now you would know.”

He looked at Reel. “She needs medical help. Now!”

“That won’t be happening.”

Robie bent down to check Reel. The shot had hit her in the oblique and gone completely through. Still, the bleeding was bad. Robie used his sling to staunch the flow.

“Get away from her, Will.”

“She’s going to die if I don’t stop the bleeding.”

“You’re both going to die, so it doesn’t really matter. Now stand up.”

He glanced at her to see that her pistol was now pointed at Tyler. The little boy looked up at his mother with an expression of horror.

“You’d…you’d shoot your own son?” said Robie slowly.

“Stand up,” she said once more, the absolute calm in her voice more unnerving than if she had been screaming at him.

Robie slowly rose.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“How was your trip to the east coast, Will? Was it fun going solo? Did you not miss me the least little bit when you left Cantrell?”

Robie stiffened like he’d received an electric shock.

“You can’t be…” He couldn’t finish the thought.

“I can be. And I am.”

“Laura Barksdale is dead. Back at the mental facility.”

“Well, in a great many ways, you’re right, Laura is dead. But in one important facet she’s not.” She ran a hand over herself. “The proof is literally standing in front of you, Will.”

Robie swayed a bit on his feet. Then he shook his head stubbornly. “You don’t look anything like her. You’re taller. You’re blonde. Your face. Your voice. You’re not her.”

“I grew two inches when I was nineteen. Barksdale trait, apparently. Really changed my body. The face? Plastic surgery. The hair? Dyed. The voice? You don’t sound anything like you used to, either. You leave Mississippi you start pronouncing your g’s again. And my brown eyes turned to baby blues by the miracle of laser surgery.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“How many people do you think recognize their high school classmates at their twenty-fifth reunion, Will? Between eighteen and their forties, people change. They get fat or thin, bald or bottle blond. We remember them as taller or shorter.” She paused. “But I must admit, I changed more than most.”

“Why? Why do all that?”

“Because I didn’t want anything left of the old Laura. I really didn’t like her very much, Will. Or rather I didn’t like what had happened to her. What others had done to her.”

“This is not possible,” said Robie. “You can’t be Laura.”

“The last thing you said to me twenty-two years ago? Do you want me to tell you? I remember it like you said it twenty-two seconds ago. Do you want to hear it, Will?”

When Robie said nothing she continued. “You told me, ‘I will always be there for you, Laura.’ That’s what you said to me by the rock wall next to my dear mother’s fabulous Barksdale garden.”

Now Robie took a step back, his glistening eyes widening in shock as the truth swept over him.

“But you weren’t always there for me, Will. In fact, you were never there for me, were you? Not when I really needed you.”

When Reel moaned, Robie looked down at her and then back to Victoria. “Please let me get her help. Then you can do what you want with me.”

Victoria shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. This plays out on my terms, not yours.”

Robie knelt next to Reel and put a comforting hand on her shoulder while he tightened the sling around her wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

“I told you not to do that. I won’t say it again.”

Robie rose. “Why did you kill all those people?”

“It wasn’t madness, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not all people who kill are mad, Will. You’ve killed, right? You’ve killed people here. And Dan told me that you serve your country somehow which also involves killing people. So are you deranged? Are you mad? I doubt you think you are.”

Robie said nothing, but his breathing accelerated and he felt as if a giant hand were smashing down on his chest.

Victoria leaned against the wall but kept the gun pointed at him. “If you want explanations, here they are. Janet Chisum was a slut. She sold herself to Sherman Clancy. So did her sister. For money. I befriended both of them. And then killed them.”

“Emma Chisum said Janet was going to make money off some secrets of important people in town.”

Victoria snorted. “Janet Chisum was a liar. But she told her kid sister a little of the truth. I was the important person who was going to give Janet money. After Janet was dead I told Sara that maybe her father was the killer. That maybe all that religion had made him nuts. I told her she needed to get out of town. That I would help her. That I felt sorry for her. Wanted her to have a better life.” She added in a scoffing tone, “As if. Old horny men and stupid, greedy young women, just doesn’t work out. I didn’t like it. So I stopped it. But I have to admit, I didn’t know you two would be there when I killed Sara. That was a bit of a complication. It was lucky I saw her in town that day and told her to meet just off the road instead of in the clearing. Otherwise, we might have had this confronation earlier.”

“I put a round in the Rover. You covered the hole with a New Orleans Saints sticker. And then you fired a round into the Rover in Clancy’s garage to make it seem as though that Rover was used. Only you apparently didn’t remember that Dad is a Cowboys fan.”